In Journal 1, Black Hat explains to Cueball that a hobby of his is to pretend to write in a journal while on the subway, acting embarrassed if anyone sees. He then proceeds to silently scorn the person once they give him any kind of reassurance.

In Journal 2, however, Danish sees through his ruse. She counteracts it by proving that she understands him, and attempts to resign him to the fact that he will never see her again, thus robbing him of the satisfaction of a proper social connection. She leaves, taking his hat in the process.

Initially stunned, Black Hat seems to have quickly recovered and tracked Danish down, even to the ends of the earth. He tells Danish that although she was able to read him brilliantly, she miscalculated one minor detail. We are led to believe that this is some mistake in the covering of her tracks, but then he explains that it was simply how much he values his hat. This way he gets back at her. She thought that he would mourn the loss of her - the only person who understands him - but he deflates her ego when claiming that he likes his hat (implicitly saying that he doesn't care for her). The series continues in 432: Journal 4.

The title text continues the theme of Black Hat's superhuman ability to troll and to avoid the consequences: If Black Hat stole a military submarine, said military is probably going to be hot on his tail, but he writes it off with: "just tell them it was always here", as if it is no big deal. Black Hat will even be blamed for stealing the submarine in 496: Secretary: Part 3. However, since this is (presumably) the American Senate reviewing him, it may be that he simply has stolen two submarines.

It is perhaps an interesting point that this comic includes the line "So, you found me after all," given that the previous comic number xkcd 404 was skipped, leading instead to an HTTP 404 Not Found error page.

Discussion

In this comic, the Black Hat guy retrieves his hat from the girl he tried (unsuccessfully) to seduce in Journal 2. He does this by stealing a Russian submarine (according to the alt-text) and breaking through the ice the girl and her friend are skating on. This is the third and middle part of the Journal story arc. ‎108.162.219.209 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Just a correction, Black Hat was not trying to seduce her. This is quite obvious from the dialogue in Journal 1, and I have no idea where you would possibly get the idea that Black Hat's original intention was anything close to seduction. He was trying to hurt her feelings, and leave her feeling alienated and upset. -Pennpenn 108.162.250.162 02:42, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I might be mistaken, but I believe that the last title text is a reference to The Hunt of Red October, and specifically the line "And I - was never here" (which is famous enough to have have named a trope). 173.245.53.183 22:30, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

The sub through the ice, i think, is "Ice Station Zebra," on WMATA's silver line. 173.245.54.167 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Should remove spoilers of future comics such as references to 432 and 496. The references made her can be covered in those as one would expect most readers to follow the comics chronologically. Refer to 374 for a better way to reference a future comic. flewk (talk) 07:08, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Could black hat have had a GPS tracker in his hat? 141.101.70.61 19:17, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Could any of this be a reference to 'I Want My Hat Back', an excellent children's picture book by Jon Klassen. The ending text is extremely similar 'You stole my hat. I love my hat.' vs 'You took my hat. I like my hat.' 162.158.91.185 15:58, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

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